The Bill Richardson
Blog:"Bill Richardson is the
Democratic Governor of New Mexico. He's a good one. In our
opinion, he'd be an even better President. Primary season is practically
around thecorner! Let us convince
you."

By Ian Samuel and Andrea
Saenz.Andrea, 24, is a Los Angeles
native who is currently a law student and aspiring writer in Cambridge,
MA. She has no professional political experience, but has been a
campaign volunteer and never misses voting in an election. She has
a personal blog called Peanut Butter Burrito. (http://peanutbutterburrito.blogs.com/)

Ian, 22, is a law student
at New York University. He grew up in southern Colorado, still votes
there by absentee ballot, and is trying to get everyone to call the Democrat-ization
of the West "the Big Strategy."

First substantial posting:
October 2, 2005 by Ian "Iowa and New Hampshire Get Company"

Andrea Saenz (May
1, 2006 e-mail):Ian and I are friends who
know each other from our years in intercollegiate debate; because of this,
we are political junkies and also like to be right about things.
We were both looking the the "next big thing" for 2008, and not wanting
to just agree with early CW that it would be Hillary Clinton, went looking
at national politicians.

We got very excited when
we read about Gov. Richardson. Ian is a Colorado native (as he's
said on the blog) and is a big proponent of the "Western Strategy," including
emphasis on energy, land use, and immigration, which are important in the
West. I'm from California and had heard of Richardson from family
members who knew of major Latino politicians (I'm Mexican-American).
We loved that he has domestic and international experience, can be bipartisan,
is a master diplomat, and that he's comfortable talking policy specifics
about lots of different areas. His credibility with Latinos, while
not just being a guy who only cares about "Latino issues," doesn't hurt.

We're tech-friendly young
folks and both have personal blogs (which are apolitical and deal with
navel-gazing and law school stuff), so Ian suggested we start the blogtogether. (Ian's a
very tech-savvy guy and has done lots of web stuff.) Law school has
slowed us down a little, but we're gearing up for lots of good coverage
this summer and through the beginning of 2008 season.

We've never worked for Richardson,
and have no contact with his "people" except that sometimes they let us
know about some event happening, and then we may or may not write about
it. Ian got to meet Richardson at a Kaine event in VA; I'm still waiting
for him to come closer to my area when I don't have tons of school responsibilities.
I've worked for local candidates in basic volunteer jobs; I think Ian has
too, but I can't be sure. Neither of us have any experience with
staff jobs or presidential campaigns (except from the days when we'd read
the Dean blog constantly :)

As far as what I've learned
during this period, the main thing is that there are lots of regular old
"informed citizens" out there, like us, who just need a common thread to
get hooked up. The site gets sporadic comments, but what's really
surprising is that we get a steady flow of emails from readers all over
the country wanting to know what they can do to help. I can't wait
for campaign season so we have something more concrete to tell them than
"Talk to your friends about Dem candidates and values" (though that's good
too.) I've also learned how grassroots and "people-powered" the liberal
blogosphere is, and I've really enjoyed seeing new "[State] for Richardson"
blogs pop up with no Richardson coordination - just because people want
to do something.

This is an article from the
New Mexican that mentions us and the blog (and the old blog of Emmett O'Connell,
who now runs America For Richardson): http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/34864.html